The blind Chinese activist said over the weekend that he was being forced out of New York University after the school faced “unrelenting pressure” from Chinese authorities in connection with its planned campus in Shanghai. He had been given a fellowship at the university following his daring escape from home detention last spring.

But on Wednesday, one of the lawyers brought in by NYU to assist Mr. Chen’s transition to life in the U.S. rejected the notion that the Chinese government played any role in his imminent departure from the campus.

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“His time at the university is simply coming to its conclusion, a conclusion that was determined long ago and that Mr. Chen has been aware of since shortly after his arrival in the United States,” Mattie J. Bekink, Mr. Chen’s former special adviser, said in a statement sent to The Wall Street Journal. “I should know, since I am the one who told him about the length of his tenure at NYU.”

Mark Corallo, co-founder of Corallo Media Strategies Inc., the public-relations firm that now represents Mr. Chen on a pro bono basis, referred to Mr. Chen’s weekend statement and said Mr. Chen had no further comment for now.

The Chinese activist was brought to NYU at the request of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, according to one person close to the university leadership, with help from NYU law professor Jerome Cohen. NYU and Harold Hongju Koh, a former legal adviser at the State Department who is currently a law professor at Yale University, denies that the request came directly from Mrs. Clinton, with Mr. Koh saying he reached out to NYU. Efforts to reach Mrs. Clinton were unsuccessful.
Ms. Bekink worked as a consultant to NYU in 2011 and 2012, first assisting the university in its efforts to establish a campus in Shanghai and later traveling to New York to assist Mr. Chen.

Calling the suggestion that the Communist Party pressured NYU to push out the activist “absurd,” she said both Mr. Cohen and the university went out of their way to aid the activist’s recovery and work in the U.S.

In her statement, Ms. Bekink said:

As a lawyer who had done rule of law work in China, I was glad to come to New York to assist the courageous Mr. Chen and his family. I believe he is a remarkable individual who has faced tremendous injustice, suffered greatly, and nonetheless continues to shine with a sense of purpose and optimism that is inspiring. His legal advocacy work was impressive and important for China. It was a great privilege to work with him and I look back at our time together fondly. I am very saddened to see him now distorting the facts about his time at NYU. It is for this reason that I wish to set the record straight.

NYU has consistently been generous to and supportive of Mr. Chen and his family. The university, with no advance warning, no budget, and no chance to prepare, embraced Mr. Chen and provided him with an unprecedented level of support. Professor Jerry Cohen’s comment that “no political refugee, not even Albert Einstein, has received better treatment,” couldn’t be more apt. Professor Cohen’s personal generosity similarly cannot be overstated.

NYU’s support for the Chens was extensive and comprehensive. It was thoughtful and deeply personal, specifically designed to meet their needs and adapted as those needs changed. When Mr. Chen arrived in New York, he was recovering from injuries sustained from his dramatic escape. NYU provided physical therapists to work with him along with an interpreter. When the children faced an unplanned summer, NYU found them a bilingual Mandarin summer camp and provided daily transportation. My clear instructions from the university were to do whatever was necessary to support this family. Never once did NYU deny a request I made on behalf of the Chens, regardless of expense. The university always put the Chens’ needs first.

Getty Images for Conde Nast Traveler

Chen Guangcheng appears on stage with Mattie J. Bekink at the Conde Nast Traveler Celebration of “The Visionaries” and 25 Years Of Truth In Travel Awards Show at Alice Tully Hall on September 18, 2012 in New York City. Mr. Chen gave a speech in praise of Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei.

Describing herself as “mystified” by Mr. Chen’s claim that NYU had caved to political pressure from Beijing, Ms. Bekink said the university not only didn’t curtail his human-rights advocacy, but rather worked to facilitate it. Among other things, she said, NYU provided him with interpreters, helped him to write and place op-eds, and arranged meetings with media, scholars, government officials and others.

Her statement continued:

NYU’s unflinching support for Mr. Chen clearly demonstrates that it was not influenced by the Chinese government. As the university has pointed out, approval for the NYU Shanghai campus came only after Mr. Chen was already comfortably settled in his Greenwich Village apartment. If the university had put its own interests in China ahead of its commitment to academic integrity and principles of academic freedom, it never would have extended the invitation to Mr. Chen in the first place. NYU also did not accept Mr. Chen under duress. It was public knowledge as Mr. Chen’s departure from China was being negotiated that he had offers from other institutions, such as the University of Washington. NYU could easily have side-stepped this matter, so its welcoming of him and its continuous support make plain the university’s values have not been compromised.

NYU provided Mr. Chen with a soft landing as a fellow in the Law School and helped him adjust to life in the United States. The plan was to support him and his family for a year and then assist them in making more permanent arrangements. That was always the understanding, and Mr. Chen was informed of this and was very grateful. NYU never committed to supporting the family indefinitely. The only thing that has changed is the passage of time.

It is a great shame that as his time at NYU comes to a close Mr. Chen chooses to malign his friends and supporters at the university with false statements. But his comments suggest that he is having a hard time accepting the reality of his new life. It is not the Chinese communist authorities who “want to make [him] so busy trying to earn a living that [he doesn't] have time for human rights advocacy.” Rather it is life in capitalist America that requires individuals to support themselves. NYU’s extreme generosity has perhaps protected him from confronting this reality until now, but that level of largesse was never intended to continue indefinitely.

Ms. Bekink, who stepped down as Mr. Chen’s adviser a month before giving birth to a son in November, concluded her statement by saying she respected “the many real challenges” the activist has overcome but added that the notion the activist faced a challenge in the form of Chinese pressure on NYU was “entirely fictional.”

NYU obtained the third of three key Chinese government approvals for the Shanghai campus in late October, NYU said, a few weeks after it told Mr. Chen it could not provide housing for him past June 2013. University spokesman John Beckman told The Wall Street Journal the timing was unrelated, saying NYU had “repeatedly indicated” that Mr. Chen’s presence and the Shanghai campus were separate matters.

NYU’s Shanghai program, which is expected to have around 300 Chinese and U.S. students, is scheduled to move into its permanent campus in 2014. The Shanghai program is a joint venture with Shanghai’s East China Normal University, which will host the first year of classes, and the district government of Pudong where the campus is being built.

People close to Mr. Chen have said the self-taught lawyer is being given advice by an entourage that includes Christian Chinese activists and other religious conservatives who are eager to for him to become a more outspoken critic of the government.

Others close to Mr. Chen, including Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R., N.J.), said NYU had made it difficult for them to have private meetings without school officials present.

Reggie Littlejohn, the founder and head of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, also said she had difficulty meeting with Mr. Chen privately when he first arrived at NYU.

NYU’s Mr. Beckman strongly denied that the school had constrained access to Mr. Chen at any time.

Mr. Smith said he talks regularly with Mr. Chen, along with Bob Fu, the head of ChinaAid, a Texas-based nonprofit group that provides support for underground house churches and victims of forced abortions in China. Mr. Smith called allegations that Mr. Chen has been co-opted by the Christian right “insulting,” including to Mr. Chen.

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